Van der Meer had a way of catching people without their knowing it. He seems to have cut a piece out of the wall where he peeped in and painted what he saw. We are glad the girl left the door open into another room so that we can see the table and pictures and part of the window-frame. I think these things are reflected in a looking-glass. Van der Meer painted only about forty pictures, and eight of those are in the United States. They are among our greatest art treasures. [Illustration: FIG. 47. THE SLEEPING GIRL. VAN DER MEER. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City] ST. ANTONY AND THE CHRIST-CHILD BARTHOLOME ESTEBAN MURILLO (1618-1682) Many very curious legends are told of St. Antony of Padua, who died in 1231. He was a close friend of St. Francis (see "St. Francis and his Birds," page 76). One story says that one time he was preaching about the Savior when the child Jesus came and sat on his open Bible. It is this story that Murillo painted his picture to illustrate. Again and again Murillo has shown us St. Antony with the Christ-child, but never more beautifully than here. This is one of Murillo's greatest religious pictures. Another story is told of St. Antony. One day he was preaching the funeral sermon of a rich young man when he exclaimed: "His heart is buried in his treasure-chest; go seek it there and you will find it." Sure enough when the friends of the rich young man opened the treasure-chest there was the heart, and no heart was found in the young man's dead body. [Illustration: FIG. 48. ST. ANTHONY AND THE CHRIST-CHILD. MURILLO. MUSEUM OF SEVILLE, SPAIN.] KING LEAR EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY (1852-1911) The story of "King Lear" is one of the most pitiful of Shakespeare's play. It is about the thanklessness of children to a father. Old _King Lear_ had three daughters--_Goneril_, _Regan_, and _Cordelia_. He loved these daughters dearly and he believed that they loved him. As he grew old in life he thought he would divide his kingdom and property among them equally; then there would be no trouble about his wealth after he was dead. Of course he expected to make his home with them in turn as long as he lived. Naturally he went to _Goneril_, the eldest daughter, first. Very soon he found that he was not wanted. She had the money--her father's money--but why should she be troubled with her old father? He then went to _Regan_, his second child, but she too refused to make a home for him. The third daughter, _Cordelia_, loved her father dearly and wanted him to live with her that she might care for him in his old age. By a strange mishap the old father thought that _Cordelia_, his beloved child, was false to him. He wandered off on the heath in a fearful storm and at last found shelter in a hut where he thinks even his faithful dogs are against him. He cries out pitifully: The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanche and Sweetheart, see they bark at me.